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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Some serious questions about Superintendent Vitti's leadership.

This is a comment left by Educatedone on the Times Union's discussion board beneath an article about recent principal moves. I think they brought up legitimate questions about both who the super promotes and fires.

Once again Superintendent Vitti continues to demonstrate that he has two standards. While he continues to hammer school-based administrators under the guise of academic accountability, he promoted Cluster Chiefs Ms.Jennifer Brown and Ms.Iranetta Wright, both former principals whose school's DOE accountability performances were both failing (F grades back to back years). Those individuals were not demoted but elevated and received increase financial compensation. However, he continues his marketing campaign to be viewed as the tough superintendent that is holding principals accountable but in reality he is carefully sorting and selecting principals that he no longer want in the principal seat while rewarding some principals whose track record does not support their promotion or elevation to senior leadership status.
It is amazing that he and his staff had the assessment data for these two schools and other failing and marginal performing schools since the summer but he and his staff failed to pull the trigger on these two school principals until September. Why wasn't this decision made before school started? What new data was provided based upon he alleged history of these administrators? And, to add an insult to all of DCPS assistant principals; he has the gall to select an AP from a high school in Miami. This person has no middle school experience, however, any thing or person from Miami Dade County Public Schools is acceptable regardless of their lack of experience or competency. All you have to do is look at the persons' credentials and experience that he brought to DCPS from Miami and DOE. Privately and around the water cooler - they are referred to as the classic cases of the "Peter Principle".
I hope that the Duval County School Board applies the same criteria that he is using in evaluating, demoting or dismissing school-based administrators. If the Board will carefully review the performances of all schools under his leadership in comparison with their performance under Mr.Pratt-Dannals leadership, they will find that we have more than double the number of schools that are rated as "D" or "F" under his watch. He will quickly tell you that the assessment system has changed and it will change again this year so don't expect any significant improvement. However, the same assessment standards/criteria was being applied to all school districts in FL; so why is St. Johns, Clay, Orange, Hillsborough, Broward, Pinellas; Volusia and other school districts academic performances improving while Duval's Ds and Fs accountability grades/schools are increasing? 

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-09-29/story/duval-schools-superintendent-vitti-switches-2-school-principals-6-weeks?cid=hp-mostcommented

1 comment:

  1. When does his contract end? I have worked for the district for more than 10 years and it has not been as bad as it is now. Technology is taking months to repair equipment. The morale of district employees is low from teachers to paras to clerks. While he is painting a picture for the public that DCPS is moving along. By the way, Jennifer Brown and Kim Bays were the only ones that applied. Job posting was sent out twice.

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